TMI
by Parodychick
Summary: When Jace finds a book titled 'The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones' along with the strange letter Magnus received saying 'read the six books', our heroes have no choice but to do so. Now all will be revealed, even if they don't want to be. Clace, Sizzy, Malec
1. Pandemonium

**_"Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:_**

**_The Genius and the mortal instruments_**

**_Are then in council; and the state of man,_**

**_Like to a little kingdom, suffers then_**

**_The nature of an insurrection._**

**_-William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar"_**

Arching an eyebrow, Alec asked. "What is that?"

Jace shrugged. "Found it," he said nonchalantly. "It's called 'The City of Bones.' At first I thought it to be a history book but..."

"What is it?" Isabelle asked raising her eyes from the magazine of her own.

Jace shrugged. "I have no clue."

Alec withheld a chuckle at Jace's agitated tone. He knew his brother hated to not know things.

"I'll call Magnus." Alec said fliping out his phone.

.

.

.

"This explains that." Magnus said dangling a letter. "This arrived in my home a while back."

Simon took the letter from the warlock and read it out loud.

_Read the six books_

_What you need to do will be revealed_

_Have the other ones there as well._

_(You know who I mean.)_

"He meant us?" Simon confirmed. "Right?"

"No," Jace frowned. "He meant the faerie folk."

Simon rolled his eyes while Clary giggled.

"Come on guys," Lifting up the book she said. "I'll read the first chapter."

_**I sung of Chaos and eternal Night, Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to ****reascend...**_

Simon frowned. "Isn't that John Milton?"

"Good guess," Clary said as she continued.

_**-John Milton,Paradise Lost**_

**"1,"** Clary begun**. "Pandemonium**

Simon sighed. "Not this place again."

"You know the place?" Isabelle questioned. Jace rolled his eyes.

"It's the place where we first met Clary, remember?"

Isabelle frowned shaking her head. Alec crossed his arms.

"Don't act so high and mighty Jace. Usually you don't remember either."

Jace gave a cheeky smile.

**"You've got to be kidding me," the bouncer said, folding his ****arms across his massive chest. He stared down at the boy in the red zip-up jacket and shook his shaved head.**

**"You can't bring that thing in here."**

**The fifty or so teenagers in line outside the Pandemonium Club leaned forward to eavesdrop. It was a long ****wait to get into the all-ages club, especially on a Sunday, and not much generally happened in line. The ****bouncers were fierce and would come down instantly on anyone who looked like they were going to start ****trouble. Fifteen-year-old Clary Fray, standing in line with her best friend, Simon, leaned forward along with ****everyone else, hoping for some excitement.**

**"Aw, come on." The kid hoisted the thing up over his head. It looked like a wooden beam, pointed at ****one end. "It's part of my costume."**

**The bouncer raised an eyebrow. "Which is what?"**

**The boy grinned. He was normal-enough-looking, Clary thought, for Pandemonium. He had electric blue ****dyed hair that stuck up around his head like the tendrils of a startled octopus, but no elaborate facial tattoos or ****big metal bars through his ears or lips. "I'm a vampire hunter." He pushed down on the wooden thing. It bent ****as easily as a blade of grass bending sideways. "It's fake. Foam rubber. See?"**

**The boy's wide eyes were way too bright a green, Clary noticed: the color of antifreeze, spring grass. ****Colored ****contact lenses, probably.**

"Don't have a crush, do you Clary?" Magnus said teasingly.

Clary avoided the question.

**The bouncer shrugged, abruptly bored. "Whatever. Go on in."**

**The boy slid past him, quick as an eel. Clary liked the lilt to his shoulders, the way he tossed his hair as he ****went. There was a word for him that her mother would have used-insouciant.**

"I knew it!" Simon said sounding pleased with himself. "I knew you liked him but you-"

"Shut up Simon." Jace said bitterly.

**"You thought he was cute," said Simon, sounding resigned. "Didn't you?"**

**Clary dug her elbow into his ribs, but didn't answer.**

"Clary," Jace said smiling. "I love you."

"For the elbow digging or...?"

Jace shook his head. "No. I just love you."

**Inside, the club was full of dry-ice smoke. Colored lights played over the dance floor, turning it into a ****multicolored fairyland of blues and acid greens, hot pinks and golds.**

**The boy in the red jacket stroked the long razor-sharp blade in his hands, an idle smile playing over his lips. It ****had been so easy-a little bit of a glamour on the blade, to make it look harmless. Another glamour on his eyes, ****and the moment the bouncer had looked straight at him, he was in. Of course, he could probably have gotten ****by without all that trouble, but it was part of the fun-fooling the mundies, doing it all out in the open right in ****front of them, getting off on the blank looks on their sheeplike faces.**

"What an..." Simon didn't finish sentance. The look on his face told it all.

"Humans aren't..." He let out a low growl and Isabelle gave his arm a squeeze.

**Not that the humans didn't have their uses. The boy's green eyes scanned the dance floor, where slender limbs ****clad in scraps of silk and black leather appeared and disappeared inside the revolving columns of smoke as the mundies**** danced. Girls tossed their long hair, boys swung their leather-clad hips, and bare skin glittered with ****sweat. Vitality just poured off them, waves of energy that filled him with a drunken dizziness. His lip curled.**

**They didn't know how lucky they were. They didn't know what it was like to eke out life in a dead world, ****where the sun hung limp in the sky like a burned cinder. Their lives burned as brightly as candle flames-and ****were as easy to snuff out.**

**His hand tightened on the blade he carried, and he had begun to step out onto the dance floor when a girl ****broke away from the mass of dancers and began walking toward him. He stared at her. She was beautiful, for a ****human-long hair nearly the precise color of black ink, charcoaled eyes. Floor-length white gown, the kind ****women used to wear when this world was younger. Lace sleeves belled out around her slim arms. Around her ****neck was a thick silver chain, on which hung a dark red pendant the size of a baby's fist. **

All occupants in the room knew exactly who it was then.

"Wow Izzy," Alec said. "Someone besides Simon has the hots for you."

Isabelle smiled. "Well that isn't too hard to fathom."

**He only had to ****narrow his eyes to know that it was real-real and precious. His mouth started to water as she neared him. Vital ****energy pulsed from her like blood from an open wound. She smiled, passing him, beckoning with her eyes. He ****turned to follow her, tasting the phantom sizzle of her death on his lips.**

**It was always easy. He could already feel the power of her evaporating life coursing through his veins like ****fire. Humans were so stupid. They had something so precious, and they barely safeguarded it at all.**

**They threw away their lives for money, for packets of powder, for a stranger's charming smile. The girl ****was a pale ghost retreating through the colored smoke. She reached the wall and turned, bunching her ****skirt up in her hands, lifting it as she grinned at him. Under the skirt, she was wearing thigh-high boots.**

"Not heels?" Magnus said. "Wow, just hearing of it is hard to believe."

Alec laughed while Isabelle rolled her eyes.

**He sauntered up to her, his skin prickling with her nearness. Up close she wasn't so perfect: He could ****see the mascara smudged under her eyes, the sweat sticking her hair to her neck. He could smell her ****mortality, the sweet rot of you, he thought.**

"Excuse him?!" Isabelle said aggressively feeling very much insulted. Her brothers chuckled.

**A cool smile curled her lips. She moved to the side, and he could see that she was leaning against a c****losed door, no admittance-storage was scrawled across it in red paint. She reached behind her for the ****knob, turned it, slid inside. He caught a glimpse of stacked boxes, tangled wiring. A storage room. He ****glanced behind him-no one was looking. So much the better if she wanted privacy.**

**He slipped into the room after her, unaware that he was being followed.**

**"So," Simon said, "pretty good music, eh?"**

"Really bloodsucker?" Jace questioned. Simon shrugged.

"What else was I supposed to say?"

"Howa'bout 'Isn't all the glitter in here fantastic?'"

Alec elbowed his boyfriend in the gut.

**Clary didn't reply. They were dancing, or what passed for it- a lot of swaying back and forth with ****occasional lunges toward the floor as if one of them had dropped a contact lens-in a space between a ****group of teenage boys in metallic corsets, and a young Asian couple who were making out passionately, ****their colored hair extensions tangled together like vines. A boy with a lip piercing and a teddy bear ****backpack was handing out free tablets of herbal ecstasy, his parachute pants flapping in the breeze from ****the wind machine. **

"Never knew you were that observant." Alec said quietly. Clary shrugged sheepishly.

"I'm really not."

**Clary wasn't paying much attention to their immediate surroundings-her eyes were on ****the blue-haired boy who'd talked his way into the club. He was prowling through the crowd as if he were ****looking for something. There was something about the way he moved that reminded her of something...**

**"I, for one," Simon went on, "am enjoying myself immensely."**

"Total lie." Simon said.

"Good to know." Clary said and continued.

**This seemed unlikely. Simon, as always, stuck out at the club like a sore thumb, in jeans and an old ****T-shirt that said made in Brooklyn across the front. His freshly scrubbed hair was dark brown instead of ****green or pink, and his glasses perched crookedly on the end of his nose. He looked less as if he were ****contemplating the powers of darkness and more as if he were on his way to chess club.**

"The chess club?" Simon repeated.

Clary shrugged withholding a laugh.

"Accurate description." Jace smiled.

"Agreed." Isabelle nodded.

"Isabelle!" Simon whined.

**"Mmm-hmm." Clary knew perfectly well that he came to Pandemonium with her only because she liked ****it, that he thought it was boring. She wasn't even sure why it was that she liked it- the clothes, the music ****made it like a dream, someone else's life, not her boring real life at all. But she was always too shy to talk ****to anyone but Simon.**

"Clary?" Simon said. "You think of yourself as shy?" He was holding in a laugh as he said this. Clary whacked him.

"Stop interrupting."

**The blue-haired boy was making his way off the dance floor. He looked a little lost, as if he hadn't found ****whom he was looking for. Clary wondered what would happen if she went up and introduced herself, ****offered to show him around. Maybe he'd just stare at her. Or maybe he was shy too. Maybe he'd be ****grateful and pleased, and try not to show it, the way boys did- but she'd know. Maybe. The ****blue-haired boy straightened up suddenly, snapping to attention, like a hunting dog on point. Clary ****followed the line of his gaze, and saw the girl in the white dress.**

**Oh, well, ****Clary thought, trying not to feel like a deflated party balloon. I guess that's that. The girl was gorgeous, ****the kind of girl Clary would have liked to draw-tall and ribbon-slim, with a long spill of black hair. Even at ****this distance Clary could see the red pendant around her throat. It pulsed under the lights of the dance floor ****like a separate, disembodied heart.**

"Clary..." Jace said softly.

Clary ignored him.

**"I feel," Simon went on, "that this evening DJ Bat is doing a singularly exceptional job. Don't you agree?"**

**Clary rolled her eyes and didn't answer; Simon hated trance music. Her attention was on the girl in the white ****dress. Through the darkness, smoke, and artificial fog, her pale dress shone out like a beacon. No wonder the ****blue-haired boy was following her as if he were under a spell, too distracted to notice anything else around ****him-even the two dark shapes hard on his heels, weaving after him through the crowd.**

**Clary slowed her dancing and stared. She could just make out that the shapes were boys, tall and wearing ****black clothes. She couldn't have said how she knew that they were following the other boy, but she did. She ****could see it in the way they paced him, their careful watchfulness, the slinking grace of their movements. A ****small flower of apprehension began to open inside her chest.**

**"Meanwhile," Simon added, "I wanted to tell you that lately I've been cross-dressing. Also, I'm sleeping with ****your mom. I thought you should know."**

"Simon!" Clary gasped.

"You were ignoring me.." Simon said in defense.

"Does anybody else love how she still ignored him _after_ he said that?" Magnus pointed out.

**The girl had reached the wall, and was opening a door marked no admittance. She beckoned the blue-haired ****boy after her, and they slipped through the door. It wasn't anything Clary hadn't seen before, a couple sneaking ****off to the dark corners of the club to make out-but that made it even weirder that they were being followed. ****She raised herself up on tiptoe, trying to see over the crowd. The two guys had stopped at the door and ****seemed to be conferring with each other. One of them was blond, the other dark-haired. **

"That's us!" Alec said a little too excited. Jace gave him a look and he sat back down.

"Sorry."

Magnus nudged him. "Don't apologize for Jace being a sourpuss."

"I am not!" Jace responded.

**The blond one reached ****into his jacket and drew out something long and sharp that flashed under the strobing lights. A knife. "Simon!"**

**Clary shouted, and seized his arm.**

**"What?" Simon looked alarmed. "I'm not really sleeping with your mom, you know. I was just trying to get ****your attention. Not that your mom isn't a very attractive woman, for her age."**

"Simon!" Clary gave her friend a shove.

**"Do you see those guys?" She pointed wildly, almost hitting a curvy black girl who was dancing nearby. The ****girl shot her an evil look. "Sorry-sorry!" Clary turned back to Simon. "Do you see those two guys over there? ****By that door?"**

**Simon squinted, then shrugged. "I don't see anything."**

"Of course you don't." Jace said. "You're a mundane."

"Were." Simon corrected quietly.

**"There are two of them. They were following the guy with the blue hair-"**

**"The one you thought was cute?"**

"Are you still on that Lewis?" Jace asked amused.

"I'm surprised you aren't." Simon muttered.

Jace smiled. "I guess some people are just more secure in themselves than others."

Simon rolled his eyes.

**"Yes, but that's not the point. The blond one pulled a knife."**

**"Are you sure?" Simon stared harder, shaking his head. "I still don't see anyone."**

**"I'm sure."**

**Suddenly all business, Simon squared his shoulders. "I'll get one of the security guards. You stay here." He ****strode away, pushing through the crowd.**

"Hey," Magnus said. "That actually was the right thing to do. Good for you Timy."

Simon groaned. "It's Simon! For-" He paused unable to say the word. "-sakes it was written like a hundred times so far..."

**Clary turned just in time to see the blond boy slip through the no admittance door, his friend right on his heels. ****She looked around; Simon was still trying to shove his way across the dance floor, but he wasn't making much ****progress. Even if she yelled now, no one would hear her, and by the time Simon got back, something terrible ****might already have happened. Biting hard on her lower lip, Clary started to wriggle through the crowd.**

"You really went in there." Magnus shook his head. "Defiantly your mothers daughter."

**"What's your name?"**

**She turned and smiled. What faint light there was in the storage room spilled down through high barred ****windows smeared with dirt. Piles of electrical cables, along with broken bits of mirrored disco balls and ****discarded paint cans littered the floor.**

**"Isabelle."**

"You told him your real name?" Simon asked with an arched eyebrow. Isabelle shrugged.

"So?"

"What if he recgonized you as Isabelle Lightwood?"

Isabelle shook her head. "Impossible."

"Actually," Matnus interjected. "Normally demons do indeed keep track of the Shadowhunters in the area. You were like this time but as much as I dread to admit, Tiland is right."

"It's Simon! And why do you always think it starts with a T?!"

**"That's a nice name." He walked toward her, stepping carefully among the wires in case any of them were ****live. In the faint light she looked half-transparent, bleached of color, wrapped in white like an angel.**

"I am an angel." Isabelle mused.

"Yeah," Jace agreed. "Angel of death."

**It would ****be a pleasure to make her fall..."I haven't seen you here before."**

**"You're asking me if I come here often?" She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. There was some ****sort of bracelet around her wrist, just under the cuff of her dress-then, as he neared her, he saw that it wasn't a ****bracelet at all but a pattern inked into her skin, a matrix of swirling lines.**

"Runes." Clary said mostly to herself.

**He froze. "You-"**

**He didn't finish. She moved with lightning swiftness, striking out at him with her open hand, a blow to his ****chest that would have sent him down gasping if he'd been a human being. **

"So he's not human?" Magnus said sarcastically. "Spoiler alert!"

**He staggered back, and now there ****was something in her hand, a coiling whip that glinted gold as she brought it down, curling around his ankles, ****jerking him off his feet. He hit the ground, writhing, the hated metal biting deep into his skin. She laughed, ****standing over him, and dizzily he thought that he should haveknown. No human girl would wear a dress like ****the one Isabelle wore. She'd worn it to cover her skin-all of her skin.**

"Is he implying I'm not human?" Isabelle asked slightly annoyed.

"You _know_ what he meant Izzy!" Alec said slightly annoyed with his sister for her constant corrections.

**Isabelle yanked hard on the whip, securing it. Her smile glittered like poisonous water. "He's all yours, boys."**

**A low laugh sounded behind him, and now there were hands on him, hauling him upright, throwing him ****against one of the concrete pillars. He could feel the damp stone under his back. His hands were pulled behind ****him, his wrists bound with wire. As he struggled, someone walked around the side of the pillar into his view: a ****boy, as young as Isabelle and just as pretty. **

"Pretty!?" Jace repeated almost insulted. Both Simon, Alec, pretty much everyone in the room laughed.

**His tawny eyes glittered like chips of amber. "So," the boy said. ****"Are there any more with you?"**

**The blue-haired boy could feel blood welling up under the too-tight metal, making his wrists slippery. "Any ****other what?"**

"Is he seriously trying to lie?" Simon asked.

"They all do." Alec shrugged.

**"Come on now." The tawny-eyed boy held up his hands, and his dark sleeves slipped down, showing the ****runes inked all over his wrists, the backs of his hands, his palms. "You know what I am."**

**Far back inside his skull, the shackled boy's second set of teeth began to grind.**

**"Shadowhunter," ****he hissed. ****The other boy grinned all over his face. "Got you," he said.**

"Jace!" Isabelle said. "You sound so freaky, you know that right?"

Jace let out a bemused laugh.

**Clary pushed the door to the storage room open, and stepped inside. For a moment she thought it was ****deserted. The only windows were high up and barred; faint street noise came through them, the sound of ****honking cars and squealing brakes. The room smelled like old paint, and a heavy layer of dust covered the ****floor, marked by smeared shoe prints.**

**There's no one in here, ****she realized, looking around in bewilderment. It was cold in the room, despite the August heat outside. Her ****back was icy with sweat. She took a step forward, tangling her feet in electrical wires. She bent down to free ****her sneaker from the cables-and heard voices. A girl's laugh, a boy answering sharply. When she straightened ****up, she saw them.**

**It was as if they had sprung into existence between one blink of her eyes and the next. There was the girl in ****her long white dress, her black hair hanging down her back like damp seaweed. The two boys were with ****her-the tall one with black hair like hers, and the smaller, fair one, whose hair gleamed like brass in the dim ****light coming through the windows high above. **

Jace chuckled. "Fair?"

Clary laughed. "Fairest of them all."

**The fair boy was standing with his hands in his pockets, facing ****the punk kid, who was tied to a pillar with what looked like piano wire, his hands stretched behind him, his ****legs bound at the ankles. His face was pulled tight with pain and fear.**

**Heart hammering in her chest, Clary ducked behind the nearest concrete pillar and peered around it. She ****watched as the fair-haired boy paced back and forth, his arms now crossed over his chest. "So," he said. "You ****still haven't told me if there are any other of your kind with you."**

**Your kind?**

**Clary wondered what he was talking about. Maybe she'd stumbled into some kind of gang war.**

"Gang war?" Alec repeated somewhat baffled while Magus let out a loud giggle.

"What _the hell_ is that?" Jace asked while Magnus commented.

"You have no idea how right you were Clary."

Simon rolled his eyes while Clary gave Magnus a look.

"It is _not_ like that."

_"What is a gang war?" _Isabelle asked beginning to get annoyed.

Magnus, Clary and Simon in unison said. "Nothing!"

**"I don't know what you're talking about." The blue-haired boy's tone was pained but surly.**

**"He means other demons," said the dark-haired boy, speaking for the first time. "You do know what a demon ****is, don't you?"**

**The boy tied to the pillar turned his face away, his mouth working.**

**"Demons," drawled the blond boy, tracing the word on the air with his finger. "Religiously defined as hell's ****denizens, the servants of Satan, but understood here, for the purposes of the Clave, to be any malevolent spirit ****whose origin is outside our own home dimension-"**

**"That's enough, Jace," said the girl.**

**"Isabelle's right," agreed the taller boy. "Nobody here needs a lesson in semantics-or demonology."**

"We _did not _need to hear your lecture." Isabelle laughed.

Simon frowned. "Hm," he said. "For some reason I thought Alec would be the brainy one."

Jace laughed. "Alec sleeps in class. Doubt he's too brainy."

Alec sent him a glare.

**Jace raised his head and smiled. There was something fierce about the gesture, something that reminded Clary ****of documentaries she'd watched about lions on the Discovery Channel, the way the big cats would raise their ****heads and sniff the air for prey. **

"A big cat?" Jace repeated.

"Very accurate in my humble opinion." Simon joked.

**"Isabelle and Alec think I talk too much," he said, confidingly. "Do you think I ****talk too much?"**

"Jace you sound like you're interrogating someone." Magnus frowned.

"I was." Jace said simply.

**The blue-haired boy didn't reply. His mouth was still working. "I could give you information," he said. "I ****know where Valentine is."**

**Jace glanced back at Alec, who shrugged. "Valentine's in the ground," Jace said. "The thing's just toying with ****us."**

**Isabelle tossed her hair. "Kill it, Jace," she said. "It's not going to tell us anything."**

"You guys didn't even consider it..." Clary said softly.

Jace shook her head. "At that time Valentine was just..he was a legend. Not a good one."

**Jace raised his hand, and Clary saw dim light spark off the knife he was holding. It was oddly translucent, the ****blade clear as crystal, sharp as a shard of glass, the hilt set with red stones.**

**The bound boy gasped. "Valentine is back!" he protested, dragging at the bonds that held his hands behind his ****back. "All the Infernal Worlds know it-I know it-I can tell you where he is-"**

**Rage flared suddenly in Jace's icy eyes. "By the Angel, every time we capture one of you bastards, you claim ****you know where Valentine is. Well, we know where he is too. He's in hell. And you-" Jace turned the knife in ****his grasp, the edge sparking like a line of fire. "You can join him there."**

**Clary could take no more. She stepped out from behind the pillar. "Stop!" she cried. "You can't do this."**

"Clary!" Magnus berated. "Why are you being so-"

"I swear if you call my girlfriend stupid warlock..." Jace threatened.

**Jace whirled, so startled that the knife flew from his hand and clattered against the concrete floor. Isabelle and ****Alec turned along with him, wearing identical expressions of astonishment. The blue-haired boy hung in his ****bonds, stunned and gaping.**

**It was Alec who spoke first. "What's this?" he demanded, looking from Clary to his companions, as if they ****might know what she was doing there.**

"Alexander," Magnus said. "You know better. It's called a girl."

"It?" Clary repeated.

Magnus chuckled.

**"It's a girl," Jace said, recovering his composure. "Surely you've seen girls before, Alec. Your sister Isabelle is ****one." He took a step closer to Clary, squinting as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. "A mundie ****girl," he said, half to himself. "And she can see us."**

"I'm not a mundie." Clary murmered.

**"Of course I can see you," Clary said. "I'm not blind, you know."**

**"Oh, but you are," said Jace, bending to pick up his knife. "You just don't know it." He straightened up. ****"You'd better get out of here, if you know what's good for you."**

**"I'm not going anywhere," Clary said. "If I do, you'll kill him." She pointed at the boy with the blue hair.**

"So this is how your _epic love story _started?" Simon laughed.

**"That's true," admitted Jace, twirling the knife between his fingers. "What do you care if I kill him or not?"**

**"Be-because-," Clary spluttered. "You can't just go around killing people."**

"Good logic Clary." Magnus commented.

**"You're right," said Jace. "You can't go around killing people." He pointed at the boy with blue hair, whose ****eyes were slitted. Clary wondered if he'd fainted. "That's not a person, little girl. It may look like a ****person and talk like a person and maybe even bleed like a person. But it's a monster."**

**"Jace," ****said Isabelle warningly. "That's enough."**

"Wow." Simon said. "Isabelle as the voice of reason..."

Isabelle shot him a glare.

**"You're crazy," Clary said, backing away from him. "I've called the police, you know. They'll be here any ****second."**

**"She's lying," said Alec, but there was doubt on his face. "Jace, do you-"**

**He never got to finish his sentence. At that moment the blue-haired boy, with a high, yowling cry, tore free of ****the restraints binding him to the pillar, and flung himself on Jace.**

**They fell to the ground and rolled together, the blue-haired boy tearing at Jace with hands that glittered as if ****tipped with metal. Clary backed up, wanting to run, but her feet caught on a loop of wiring and she went ****down, knocking the breath out of her chest. She could hear Isabelle shrieking. Rolling over, Clary saw the ****blue-haired boy sitting on Jace's chest. Blood gleamed at the tips of his razorlike claws.**

**Isabelle and Alec were running toward them, Isabelle brandishing a whip in her hand. The blue-haired boy ****slashed at Jace with claws extended. Jace threw an arm up to protect himself, and the claws raked it, ****splattering blood. The blue-haired boy lunged again-and Isabelle's whip came down across his back. He ****shrieked and fell to the side.**

**Swift as a flick of Isabelle's whip, Jace rolled over. There was a blade gleaming in his hand. He sank the knife ****into the blue-haired boy's chest. Blackish liquid exploded around the hilt. The boy arched off the floor, ****gurgling and twisting. With a grimace Jace stood up. His black shirt was blacker now in some places, wet with ****blood. He looked down at the twitching form at his feet, reached down, and yanked out the knife. The hilt was ****slick with black fluid.**

**The blue-haired boy's eyes flickered open. His eyes, fixed on Jace, seemed to burn. Between his teeth, he ****hissed,"So be it. The Forsaken will take you all."**

**Jace seemed to snarl. The boy's eyes rolled back. His body began to jerk and twitch as he crumpled, folding in ****on himself, growing smaller and smaller until he vanished entirely.**

**Clary scrambled to her feet, kicking free of the electrical wiring. She began to back away. None of them was ****paying attention to her. Alec had reached Jace and was holding his arm, pulling at the sleeve, probably trying ****to get a good look at the wound. Clary turned to run-and found her way blocked by Isabelle, whip in hand. The ****gold length of it was stained with dark fluid. She flicked it toward Clary, and the end wrapped itself around ****her wrist and jerked tight. Clary gasped with pain and surprise.**

**"Stupid little mundie," Isabelle said between her teeth. "You could have gotten Jace killed."**

"Not a mundie." Clary repeated under her breath.

**"He's crazy," Clary said, trying to pull her wrist back. The whip bit deeper into her skin. "You're all crazy. ****What do you think you are, vigilante killers? The police-"**

**"The police aren't usually interested unless you can produce a body," said Jace. Cradling his arm, he picked ****his way across the cable-strewn floor toward Clary. Alec followed behind him, face screwed into a scowl.**

**Clary glanced at the spot where the boy had disappeared from, and said nothing. There wasn't even a ****smear of blood there-nothing to show that the boy had ever existed.**

**"They return to their home dimensions when they die," said Jace. "In case you were wondering."**

**"Jace," Alec hissed. "Be careful."**

**Jace drew his arm away. A ghoulish freckling of blood marked his face. He still reminded her of a lion, with ****his wide-spaced, light-colored eyes, and that tawny gold hair. "She can see us, Alec," he said. "She already ****knows too much."**

**"So what do you want me to do with her?" Isabelle demanded.**

"You know the way you said that," Clary begun. "I thought you were going to kill me."

Isabelle gave a small shrug while Clary's eyes went wide.

**"Let her go," Jace said quietly. Isabelle shot him a surprised, almost angry look, but didn't argue. The whip ****slithered away, freeing Clary's arm. She rubbed her sore wrist and wondered how the hell she was going to get ****out of there.**

**"Maybe we should bring her back with us," Alec said. "I bet Hodge would like to talk to her."**

**"No way are we bringing her to the Institute," said Isabelle. "She's a mundie."**

**"Or is she?" said Jace softly. His quiet tone was worse than Isabelle's snapping or Alec's anger. "Have you ****had dealings with demons, little girl? Walked with warlocks, talked with the Night Children? Have you-"**

**"My name is not 'little girl,'" Clary interrupted. "And I have no idea what you're talking about."**

Clary shook her head. "You annoyed me so much. So arrogant-"

"Still is." Simon interrupted. "You just have love goggles on."

**Don't you? ****said a voice in the back of her head. You saw that boy vanish into thin air. Jace isn't crazy -you just wish he ****was."I don't believe in-in demons, or whatever you-"**

**"Clary?" It was Simon's voice. She whirled around. He was standing by the storage room door. One of the ****burly bouncers who'd been stamping hands at the front door was next to him. "Are you okay?" He peered at ****her through the gloom. "Why are you in here by yourself? What happened to the guys-you know, the ones ****with the knives?"**

"I feel stupid now." Simon said.

"Don't look so surprised." replied Jace. "I doubt the feeling is unfamiliar."

**Clary stared at him, then looked behind her, where Jace, Isabelle, and Alec stood, Jace still in his bloody shirt ****with the knife in his hand. He grinned at her and dropped a half-apologetic, half-mocking shrug. Clearly he ****wasn't surprised that neither Simon nor the bouncer could see them.**

"God did I hate you.." Clary commented mostly to herself.

**Somehow neither was Clary. Slowly she turned back to Simon, knowing how she must look to him, standing ****alone in a damp storage room, her feet tangled in bright plastic wiring cables. "I thought they went in here," ****she said lamely. "But I guess they didn't. I'm sorry." She glanced from Simon, whose expression was changing ****from worried to embarrassed, to the bouncer, who just looked annoyed. "It was a mistake."**

**Behind her, Isabelle giggled.**

"Really Izzy?" Simon said arching an eyebrow. "You giggle at that? Didn't you feel anything when you first saw me? Even the slightest tingly sensation in your heart."

Isabelle grimaced. "Sorry."

**"I don't believe it," Simon said stubbornly as Clary, standing at the curb, tried desperately to hail a cab. Street ****cleaners had come down Orchard while they were inside the club, and the street was glossed black with oily ****water.**

**"I know," she agreed. "You'd think there'd besome cabs. Where is everyone going at midnight on a Sunday?"**

**She turned back to him, shrugging. "You think we'd have better luck on Houston?"**

"Really Clary?" Jace said. "Did you really think-"

"Of course I knew!" Clary exclaimed. "I just wanted to get you-you all-out of my mind at the time. I thought I was going insane..."

**"Not the cabs," Simon said. "You-I don't believe you. I don't believe those guys with the knives just ****disappeared."**

**Clary sighed. "Maybe there weren't any guys with knives, Simon. Maybe I just imagined the whole thing."**

**"No way." Simon raised his hand over his head, but the oncoming taxis whizzed by him, spraying dirty water.**

**"I saw your face when I came into that storage room. You looked seriously freaked out, like you'd seen a ****ghost."**

"You scared the crap out of me." Simon added on. "I seriously thought you were gonna drop dead or something."

Clary gave him an apologetic look.

**Clary thought of Jace with his lion-cat eyes. She glanced down at her wrist, braceleted by a thin red line ****where Isabelle's whip had , not a ghost, she even weirder than that.**

"Sorry." Isabelle whispered referring to the mark she left.

"Don't worry," Clary waved off. "I've had worse...or I will _get_ worse...technically."

**"It was just a mistake," she said wearily. She wondered why she wasn't telling him the truth. Except, of ****course, that he'd think she was crazy. And there was something about what had happened-something about the ****black blood bubbling up around Jace's knife, something about his voice when he'd said. Have you talked with ****the Night Children? that she wanted to keep to herself.**

"I repeat: Is that really how you two started?" Simon asked.

"No," Clary said sarcastically. "I saw him in my dreams."

"Really?"

"No!"

"Actually," Magnus intervened. "It is uncommon for that too happen. To have dreams about the one you'll love before you meet them. Even if you don't end up with them..."

Alec glanced away. Almost as if embarrassed.

**"Well, it was a hell of an embarrassing mistake," Simon said. He glanced back at the club, where a thin line ****still snaked out the door and halfway down the block. "I doubt they'll ever let us back into Pandemonium."**

"Like you care." Clary said.

**"What do you care? You hate Pandemonium." Clary raised her hand again as a yellow shape sped toward ****them through the fog. This time, though, the taxi screeched to a halt at their corner, the driver laying into his ****horn as if he needed to get their attention.**

**"Finally we get lucky." Simon yanked the taxi door open and slid onto the plastic-covered backseat. Clary ****followed, inhaling the familiar New York cab smell of old cigarette smoke, leather, and hair spray. "We're ****going to Brooklyn," Simon said to the cabbie, and then he turned to Clary. "Look, you know you can tell me ****anything, right?"**

"_Anything_." Simon repeated.

"You would've thought I was crazy." Clary justified.

"Yes," Simon nodded. "But I would've told anybody-hey!"

**Clary hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Sure, Simon," she said. "I know I can."**

"But you didn't." Simon said no longer painful but slightly bitter.

**She slammed the cab door shut behind her, and the taxi took off into the night.**

Clary shut the book. "So," She begun. "Who wants to read next chapter?"

"Wait," Simon interjected. "Shouldn't we-I don't know-discuss it?"

"Discuss what?" Jace said annoyed. "This is just the beginning. Nothings happened yet that is important."

Clary arched an eyebrow. "So meeting me isn't-"

"Besides that."

"Nice save." Isabelle chuckled. "But there also was another thing that was important."

"Valentine." Magnus said.

Isabelle nodded.

"Wait," Simon said. "What about the fact that Clary saw her first shadowhunter?" He paused. "Well, besides her mom. And Luke, but does Luke count or-"

"Simon." Clary said. "I think that was included in the meeting me part."

Alec rolled his eyes growing tired of the bickering.

"I'll read chapter 2." He said taking the book from Clary. "Secrets and Lies." He read the chapter title. "This should be interesting."

* * *

**A/N**

**So? What did you guys think? Honestly I think I could've done better but I dunno...anyway please review and I hope you enjoyed it! Also, if you want to see certain reactions to some stuff send that request in a review. I'll try and get them in!**

**Anyway, thanks for reading! I'm not sure when I'm starting on chapter 2 but hopefully it'll be soon.**

**Oh!**

**And the reason I named it TMI isn't just for 'The Mortal Instruments' but for 'Too much Information'. Stupid I know but I think its also cute...in a way..**


	2. Secrets and Lies

_Alec rolled his eyes growing tired of the bickering._

_"I'll read chapter 2." He said taking the book from Clary. "Secrets and Lies." He read the chapter title. "This should be interesting."_

**The dark prince sat astride his black steed, his sable cape f****lowing behind him. A golden circlet bound his blond locks, his handsome face was cold with the rage of ****battle, and...**

"You were drawing me?" Jace asked more then slightly amused by the fact. "You could've just asked."

Clary glowered at him. _"How?"_

Jace shrugged. "...later?"

**"And his arm looked like an eggplant," Clary muttered to herself in exasperation. The drawing just wasn't ****working. With a sigh she tore yet another sheet from her sketchpad, crumpled it up, and tossed it against the ****orange wall of her bedroom. Already the floor was littered with discarded balls of paper, a sure sign that her ****creative juices weren't flowing the way she'd hoped. She wished for the thousandth time that she could be a bit ****more like her mother. Everything Jocelyn Fray drew, painted, or sketched was beautiful, and seemingly ****effortless.**

"Now thats a lie." Magnus said. "You're mother had a field day when she was your age and messed up a sketch. It was hilarious."

**Clary pulled her headphones out-cutting off Stepping Razor in midsong-and rubbed her aching temples.**

"Stepping Razor?" Alec interupted himself looking at Clary.

Clary shrugged while Simon withheld a chuckle.

**It ****was only then that she became aware that the loud, piercing sound of a ringing telephone was echoing through ****the apartment. Tossing the sketchpad onto the bed, she jumped to her feet and ran into the living room, where ****the retro-red phone sat on a table near the front door.**

**"Is this Clarissa Fray?" The voice on the other end of the phone sounded familiar, though not immediately ****identifiable.**

**Clary twirled the phone cord nervously around her finger. "Yeees?"**

**"Hi, I'm one of the knife-carrying hooligans you met last night in Pandemonium? I'm afraid I made a bad ****impression and was hoping you'd give me a chance to make it up to-"**

It was then Simon began gigglinging like a little child while Isabelle, Alec and Jace shared confused looks. Magnus face palmed.

**"SIMON!" Clary held the phone away from her ear as he cracked up laughing. "That is so not funny!"**

**"Sure it is. You just don't see the humor."**

**"Jerk." Clary sighed, leaning up against the wall. "You wouldn't be laughing if you'd been here when I got ****home last night."**

**"Why not?"**

**"My mom. She wasn't happy that we were late. She freaked out. It was messy."**

**"What? It's not our fault there was traffic!" Simon protested. He was the youngest of three children and had a ****finely honed sense of familial injustice.**

"Three?" Isabelle said arching an eyebrow. "You've mentioned a sister but never-"

Simon waved her off. "Let's...not. Please."

**"Yeah, well, she doesn't see it that way. I disappointed her, I let her down, I made her worry, blah blah blah. I ****am the bane of her existence," Clary said, mimicking her mother's precise phrasing with only a slight twinge of ****guilt.**

"The bane?" Magnus said with a devilish smile. "She was probaly confusingyou with me."

Alec gave his boyfriend a slight shove.

**"So, are you grounded?" Simon asked, a little too loudly. Clary could hear a low rumble of voices behind ****him; people talking over each other.**

**"I don't know yet," she said. "My mom went out this morning with Luke, and they're not back yet. Where are ****you, anyway? Eric's?"**

**"Yeah. We just finished up practice." A cymbal clashed behind Simon. Clary winced. "Eric's doing a poetry ****reading over at Java Jones tonight," Simon went on, naming a coffee shop around the corner from Clary's that ****sometimes had live music at night. "The whole band's going to go to show their support. ****Want to come?"**

"That sounds incredibly dull." Jace said bluntly.

**"Yeah, all right." Clary paused, tugging on the phone cord anxiously. "Wait, no."**

**"Shut up, guys, will you?" Simon yelled, the faintness of his voice making Clary suspect that he was holding ****the phone away from his mouth. He was back a second later, sounding troubled. "Was that a yes or a no?"**

**"I don't know." Clary bit her lip. "My mom's still mad at me about last night. I'm not sure I want to piss her ****off by asking for any favors. If I'm going to get in trouble, I don't want it to be on account of Eric's lousy ****poetry."**

"That's not nice." Isabelle said automaticslly but despite that meant it in a serious way.

"His poetry's not nice." Was Clary's response.

**"Come on, it's not so bad," Simon said. Eric was his next-door neighbor, and the two had known each other ****most of their lives. They weren't close the way Simon and Clary were, but they had formed a rock band ****together at the start of sophomore year, along with Eric's friends Matt and Kirk. They practiced together ****faithfully in Eric's parents' garage every week. "Besides, it's not a favor," Simon added, "it's a poetry slam ****around the block from your house. It's not like I'm inviting you to some orgy in Hoboken. Your mom can ****come along if she wants."**

"I don't understand." Magnus said. "Your brain is suppose to process the words before they come out. It seems you have a malfunction."

Simon rolled his eyes.

**"ORGY IN HOBOKEN!" Clary heard someone, probably Eric, yell. Another cymbal crashed. She imagined ****her mother listening to Eric read his poetry, and she shuddered inwardly.**

**"I don't know. If all of you show up here, I think she'll freak."**

**"Then I'll come alone. I'll pick you up and we can walk over there together, meet the rest of them there. Your ****mom won't mind. She loves me."**

"No offense to your mother Clary but that's a sign of questionable taste in my humble opinion." Jace said arrogantly.

**Clary had to laugh. "Sign of her questionable taste, if you ask me."**

Jace shot his girlfriend a smile.

**"Nobody did." Simon clicked off, amid shouts from his bandmates.**

**Clary hung up the phone and glanced around the living room. Evidence of her mother's artistic tendencies was ****everywhere, from the handmade velvet throw pillows piled on the dark red sofa to the walls hung with ****Jocelyn's paintings, carefully framed-landscapes, mostly: the winding streets of downtown Manhattan lit with ****golden light; scenes of Prospect Park in winter, the gray ponds edged with lacelike films of white ice.**

"It sounds like a mess." Alec said distastefully.

**On the mantel over the fireplace was a framed photo of Clary's father. A thoughtful-looking fair man in ****military dress, his eyes bore the telltale traces of laugh lines at the corners. He'd been a decorated soldier ****serving overseas. Jocelyn had some of his medals in a small box by her bed. Not that the medals had done ****anyone any good when Jonathan Clark had crashed his car into a tree just outside Albany and died before his ****daughter was even born.**

"Johnathan Clark?" Jace asked squinting his eyes.

"Superman." Simon mumbled randomly and mostly to himself.

**Jocelyn had gone back to using her maiden name after he died. She never talked about Clary's father, but she ****kept the box engraved with his initials, J. C, next to her bed. Along with the medals were one or two photos, a ****wedding ring, and a single lock of blond hair. Sometimes Jocelyn took the box out and opened it and held the ****lock of hair very gently in her hands before putting it back and carefully locking the box up again.**

Clary made a gulping sound that made her uncomfortableness obvious. Jace, without even thinking about it, moved his hand to hold hers.

**The sound of the key turning in the front door roused Clary out of her reverie. Hastily she threw herself down ****on the couch and tried to look as if she were immersed in one of the paperbacks her mother had ****left stacked on the end table. Jocelyn recognized reading as a sacred pastime and usually wouldn't interrupt ****Clary in the middle of a book, even to yell at her.**

**The door opened with a thump. It was Luke, his arms full of what looked like big square pieces of pasteboard. ****When he set them down, Clary saw that they were cardboard boxes, folded flat. He straightened up and turned ****to her with a smile.**

**"Hey, Un-hey, Luke," she said. He'd asked her to stop calling him Uncle Luke about a year ago, claiming that ****it made him feel old, and anyway reminded him of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Besides, he'd reminded her gently, he ****wasn't really her uncle, just a close friend of her mother's who'd known her all her life.**

"More than that too." Simon chuckled. At Clary's look he made a face. "Did I say that? I meant that-"

Clary's put a hand over his mouth. "Shush."

**"Where's Mom?"**

**"Parking the truck," he said, straightening his lanky frame with a groan. He was dressed in his usual uniform: ****old jeans, a flannel shirt, and a bent pair of gold-rimmed spectacles that sat askew on the bridge of his nose.**

**"Remind me again why this building has no service elevator?"**

**"Because it's old, and hascharacter," Clary said immediately. Luke grinned. "What are the boxes for?" she ****asked.**

**His grin vanished. "Your mother wanted to pack up some things," he said, avoiding her gaze.**

**"What things?" Clary asked.**

"Like he was gonna tell you." Magnus said. "They don't do that. Adults I mean-oh and I meant we. We don't do that. As in I'm an adult."

"Magnus." Alec said and the warlock shut up with a smile though.

**He gave an airy wave. "Extra stuff lying around the house. Getting in the way. You know she never throws ****anything out. So what are you up to? Studying?" He plucked the book out of her hand and read out loud:"The ****world still teems with those motley beings whom a more sober philosophy has discarded. Fairies and goblins, ****ghosts and demons, still hover about -" He lowered the book and looked at her over his glasses. "Is this for ****school?"**

Simon raised an eyebrow. "What book _is_ that?"

Shamefully Clary admitted. "I don't remember."

**"The Golden Bough? ****No. School's not for a few weeks." Clary took the book back from him. "It's my mom's."**

**"I had a feeling."**

**She dropped it back on the table. "Luke?"**

**"Uh-huh?" The book already forgotten, he was rummaging in the tool kit next to the hearth. "Ah, here it is."**

**He pulled out an orange plastic tape gun and gazed at it with deep satisfaction.**

**"What would you do if you saw something nobody else could see?"**

Simon snorted. "Real casual Clary."

**The tape gun fell out of Luke's hand, and hit the tiled hearth. He knelt to pick it up, not looking at her. "You ****mean if I were the only witness to a crime, that sort of thing?"**

**"No. I mean, if there were other people around, but you were the only one who could see something. As if it ****were invisible to everyone but you."**

**He hesitated, still kneeling, the dented tape gun gripped in his hand.**

**"I know it sounds crazy," Clary ventured nervously, "but..."**

**He turned around. His eyes, very blue behind the glasses, rested on her with a look of firm affection. "Clary, ****you're an artist, like your mother. That means you see the world in ways that other people don't. It's your gift, ****to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy-just different. There's nothing ****wrong with being different."**

"Well that was a load of BS." Clary muttered.

**Clary pulled her legs up, and rested her chin on her knees. In her mind's eye she saw the storage room, ****Isabelle's gold whip, the blue-haired boy convulsing in his death spasms, and Jace's tawny and ****horror. **

**She said, "If my dad had lived, do you think he'd have been an artist too?" ****Luke looked taken aback. Before he could answer her, the door swung open and Clary's mother stalked into ****the room, her boot heels clacking on the polished wooden floor. She handed Luke a set of jingling car keys ****and turned to look at her daughter.**

**Jocelyn Fray was a slim, compact woman, her hair a few shades darker than Clary's and twice as long. At the ****moment it was twisted up in a dark red knot, stuck through with a graphite pen to hold it in place. She wore ****paint-spattered overalls over a lavender T-shirt, and brown hiking boots whose soles were caked with oil paint.**

**People always told Clary that she looked like her mother, but she couldn't see it herself. The only thing that ****was similar about them was their figures: They were both slender, with small chests and narrow hips. She ****knew she wasn't beautiful like her mother was. To be beautiful you had to be willowy and tall. When you were ****as short as Clary was, just over five feet, you were cute. Not pretty or beautiful, but cute. Throw in carroty hair ****and a face full of freckles, and she was a Raggedy Ann to her mother's Barbie doll.**

"That's not true." Jace said without hesitance. Clary gave him a small but shy smile in response.

**Jocelyn even had a graceful way of walking that made people turn their heads to watch her go by. Clary, by ****contrast, was always tripping over her feet. The only time people turned to watch her go by was when she ****hurtled past them as she fell downstairs.**

"Don't be worried about that," Isabelle began. "That's actually a shadowhunter thing."

Clary nodded.

**"Thanks for bringing the boxes up," Clary's mother said to Luke, and smiled at him. He didn't return the ****smile. Clary's stomach did an uneasy flip. Clearly there was something going on. "Sorry it took me so long to ****find a space. There must be a million people at the park today-"**

**"Mom?" Clary interrupted. "What are the boxes for?"**

**Jocelyn bit her lip. Luke flicked his eyes toward Clary, mutely urging Jocelyn forward. With a nervous twitch ****of her wrist, Jocelyn pushed a dangling lock of hair behind her ear and went to join her daughter on the couch.**

**Up close Clary could see how tired her mother looked. There were dark half-moons under her eyes, and her ****lids were pearly with sleeplessness.**

**"Is this about last night?" Clary asked.**

**"No," her mother said quickly, and then hesitated. "Maybe a little. You shouldn't have done what you did last ****night. You know better."**

**"And I already apologized. What is this about? If you're grounding me, get it over with."**

**"I'm not," said her mother, "grounding you." Her voice was as taut as a wire. She glanced at Luke, who shook ****his head.**

**"Just tell her, Jocelyn," he said.**

**"Could you not talk about me like I'm not here?" Clary said angrily. "And what do you mean, tell me? Tell me ****what?"**

**Jocelyn expelled a sigh. "We're going on vacation."**

**Luke's expression went blank, like a canvas wiped clean of paint.**

"Wow." Magnus said. "You'd think he'd be used to hesring her lie to you. I am and I haven't even-"

"Magnus." Clary's voice was stern and held a command within it. The warlock stopped.

**Clary shook her head. "That's what this is about? You're going on vacation?" She sank back against the ****cushions. "I don't get it. Why the big production?"**

**"I don't think you understand. I meant we're all going on vacation. The three of us-you, me, and Luke. We're ****going to the farmhouse."**

**"Oh." Clary glanced at Luke, but he had his arms crossed over his chest and was staring out the window, his ****jaw pulled tight. She wondered what was upsetting him. He loved the old farmhouse in upstate New York-he'd ****bought and restored it himself ten years before, and he went there whenever he could. "For how long?"**

**"For the rest of the summer," said Jocelyn. "I brought the boxes in case you want to pack up any books, ****painting supplies-"**

**"For the rest of the summer?" Clary sat upright with indignation. "I can't do that, Mom. I have ****plans-Simon and I were going to have a back-to-school party, and I've got a bunch of meetings with my art ****group, and ten more classes at Tisch-"**

**"I'm sorry about Tisch. But the other things can be canceled. Simon will understand, and so will your art ****group."**

**Clary heard the implacability in her mother's tone and realized she was serious. "But I paid for those art ****classes! I saved up all year! You promised." She whirled, turning to Luke. "Tell her! Tell her it isn't fair!"**

**Luke didn't look away from the window, though a muscle jumped in his cheek. "She's your mother. It's ****her decision to make."**

**"I don't get it." Clary turned back to her mother. "Why?"**

**"I have to get away, Clary," Jocelyn said, the corners of her mouth trembling. "I need the peace, the ****quiet, to paint. And money is tight right now-"**

**"So sell some more of Dad's stocks," Clary said angrily. "That's what you usually do, isn't it?"**

**Jocelyn recoiled. "That's hardly fair."**

**"Look, go if you want to go. I don't care. I'll stay here without you. I can work; I can get a job at ****Starbucks or something. Simon said they're always hiring. I'm old enough to take care of myself-"**

**"No!" The sharpness in Jocelyn's voice made Clary jump. "I'll pay you back for the art classes, Clary. But you ****are coming with us. It isn't optional. You're too young to stay here on your own. Something could happen."**

**"Like what? What could happen?" Clary demanded.**

"Wrong question past me." Clary said. "The question is, what _won't_ happen? And thats anything good."

**There was a crash. She turned in surprise to find that Luke had knocked over one of the framed pictures ****leaning against the wall. Looking distinctly upset, he set it back. When he straightened, his mouth was set in a ****grim line. "I'm leaving."**

**Jocelyn bit her lip. "Wait." She hurried after him into the entryway, catching up just as he seized the ****doorknob. Twisting around on the sofa, Clary could just overhear her mother's urgent whisper."... Bane," ****Jocelyn was saying. "I've been calling him and calling him for the past three weeks. His voice mail says he's in ****Tanzania. What am I supposed to do?"**

"Tanzania?" Alec chuckled. Magnus showed no ounce of remorse.

**"Jocelyn." Luke shook his head. "You can't keep going to him forever."**

**"But Clary-"**

**"Isn't Jonathan," Luke hissed. "You've never been the same since it happened, but Clary isn't Jonathan."**

**What does my father have to do with this? ****Clary thought, bewildered. "I can't just keep her at home, not let her go out. She won't put up with it."**

**"Of course she won't!" Luke sounded really angry. "She's not a pet, she's a teenager. Almost an adult."**

**"If we were out of the city..."**

**"Talk to her, Jocelyn." Luke's voice was firm. "I mean it." He reached for the doorknob.**

**The door flew open. Jocelyn gave a little scream.**

**"Jesus!" Luke exclaimed.**

**"Actually, it's just me," said Simon. "Although I've been told the resemblance is startling." He waved at ****Clary from the doorway. "You ready?"**

"Bad timing vampire." Jace spoke with venom.

"Actually," Clary said. "It was perfect."

**Jocelyn took her hand away from her mouth. "Simon, were you eavesdropping?"**

**Simon blinked. "No, I just got here." He looked from Jocelyn's pale face to Luke's grim one. "Is ****something wrong? Should I go?"**

"Obviously!"

**"Don't bother," Luke said. "I think we're done here." He pushed past Simon, thudding down the stairs at a ****rapid pace. Downstairs, the front door slammed shut. ****Simon hovered in the doorway, looking uncertain. "I can come back later," he said. "Really. It wouldn't ****be a problem."**

**"That might-," Jocelyn began, but Clary was already on her feet.**

**"Forget it, Simon. We're leaving," she said, grabbing her messenger bag from a hook near the door. She ****slung it over her shoulder, glaring at her mother. "See you later, Mom."**

"I should've left." Simon frowned. Clary waved him off.

"Simon if I didn't leave with you then I would've been-" She didn't finish the sentance refusing to dwell of the thought. "It was a good thing." She reasured**. **

**Jocelyn bit her lip. "Clary, don't you think we should talk about this?"**

**"We'll have plenty of time to talk while we're on 'vacation,'" Clary said venomously, and had the satisfaction ****of seeing her mother flinch. "Don't wait up," she added, and, grabbing Simon's arm, she half-dragged him out ****the front door.**

**He dug his heels in, looking apologetically over his shoulder at Clary's mother, who stood small and forlorn ****in the entryway, her hands knitted tightly together. "Bye, Mrs. Fray!" he called. "Have a nice evening!"**

**"Oh, shut up, Simon," Clary snapped, and slammed the door behind them, cutting off her mother's reply.**

"Oh man Clary," Simon exclaimed. "I was sorta reslly frealed out. Last time I saw you that steamed-"

"We don't talk about that!" Clary said abruptly. The shadowhunters looked cofnused but silently decided against questioning it.

**"Jesus, woman, don't rip my arm off," Simon protested as Clary hauled him downstairs after her, her green ****Skechers slapping against the wooden stairs with every angry step. She glanced up, half-expecting to see her ****mother glaring down from the landing, but the apartment door stayed shut.**

**"Sorry," Clary muttered, letting go of his wrist. She paused at the foot of the stairs, her messenger bag ****banging against her hip.**

**Clary's brownstone, like most in Park Slope, had once been the single residence of a wealthy family. Shades ****of its former grandeur were still evident in the curving staircase, the chipped marble entryway floor, and the ****wide single-paned skylight overhead. Now the house was split into separate apartments, and Clary and her ****mother shared the three-floor building with a downstairs tenant, an elderly woman who ran a psychic's shop ****out of her apartment. She hardly ever came out of it, though customer visits were infrequent. A gold plaque ****fixed to the door proclaimed her to be madame DOROTHEA, SEERESS AND PROPHETESS.**

**The thick sweet scent of incense spilled from the half-open door into the foyer. Clary could hear a low ****murmur of voices.**

**"Nice to see she's doing a booming business," Simon said. "It's hard to get steady prophet work these days."**

**"Do you have to be sarcastic about everything?" Clary snapped.**

"Yes." Most of the rooms occupants said in unison.

Simon chuckled.

**Simon blinked, clearly taken aback. "I thought you liked it when I was witty and ironic."**

**Clary was about to reply when the door to Madame Dorothea's swung fully open and a man stepped out. He ****was tall, with maple-syrup-colored skin, gold-green eyes like a cat's, and tangled black hair. He grinned at her ****blindingly, showing sharp white teeth.**

**A wave of dizziness came over her, the strong sensation that she was going to faint.**

**Simon glanced at her uneasily. "Are you all right? You look like you're going to pass out."**

**She blinked at him. "What? No, I'm fine."**

**He didn't seem to want to let it drop. "You look like you just saw a ghost."**

**She shook her head. The memory of having seen something teased her, but when she tried to concentrate, it ****slid away like water. "Nothing. I thought I saw Dorothea's cat, but I guess it was just a trick of the light."**

**Simon stared at her. "I haven't eaten anything since yesterday," she added defensively. "I guess I'm a little out ****of it."**

**He slid a comforting arm around her shoulders. "Come on, I'll buy you some food."**

"What would you do without me?" Simon grinned.

"You don't want to hear my answer." Jace snarked.

**"I just can't believe she's being like this," Clary said for the fourth time, chasing a stray bit of guacamole ****around her plate with the tip of a nacho. They were at a neighborhood Mexican joint, a hole in the wall called ****Nacho Mama. "Like grounding me every other week wasn't bad enough. Now I'm going to be exiled for the ****rest of the summer."**

**"Well, you know, your mom gets like this sometimes," Simon said. "Like when she breathes in or out." He ****grinned at her around his veggie burrito.**

"Veggie? As in vegetarian?" Magnus questioned. Simon silently nodded. "That must really suck." Magnus paused. "Haha, pun. I didn't mean to do it but-"

Alec ignored him and coutinued reading.

**"Oh, sure, act like it's funny," she said."You're not the one getting dragged off to the middle of nowhere for ****God knows how long-"**

**"Clary." ****Simon interrupted her tirade. "I'm not the one you're mad at. Besides, it isn't going to be permanent."**

**"How do you know that?"**

**"Well, because I know your mom," Simon said, after a pause. "I mean, you and I have been friends for what, ****ten years now? I know she gets like this sometimes. She'll think better of it." ****Clary picked a hot pepper off her plate and nibbled the edge meditatively. "Do you, though?" she said. "Know ****her, I mean? I sometimes wonder if anyone does."**

**Simon blinked at her. "You lost me there."**

"So _oblivious_!" Jace said once more with annoyance,

**Clary sucked in air to cool her burning mouth. "I mean, she never talks about herself. I don't know anything ****about her early life, or her family, or much about how she met my dad. She doesn't even have wedding photos. ****It's like her life started when she had me. That's what she always says when I ask her about it."**

"That's sorta sweet." Isabelle commented.

**"Aw." Simon made a face at her. "That's sweet."**

**"No, it isn't. It's weird. It's weird that I don't know anything about my grandparents. I mean, I know my dad's ****parents weren't very nice to her, but could they have been that bad? What kind of people don't want to even ****meet their granddaughter?"**

"Dead ones."

**"Maybe she hates them. Maybe they were abusive or something," Simon suggested. "She does have those ****scars."**

All eyes turned to Simon.

Jace began. "How'd you-"

"Alec," Simon spoke loudly. "Continue."

**Clary stared at him. "She has what?"**

**He swallowed a mouthful of burrito. "Those little thin scars. All over her back and her arms. I have seen your ****mother in a bathing suit, you know." **

**"I never noticed any scars," Clary said decidedly. "I think you're ****imagining things." He stared at her, and seemed about to say something when her cell phone, buried in her ****messenger bag, ****began an insistent blaring. Clary fished it out, gazed at the numbers blinking on the screen, and scowled. "It's ****my mom."**

**"I could tell from the look on your face. You going to talk to her?"**

**"Not right now," Clary said, feeling the familiar bite of guilt in her stomach as the phone stopped ringing ****and voice mail picked up. "I don't want to fight with her."**

"I should've picked it up." Clary whispered huddling closer to Jace.

**"You can always stay at my house," Simon said. "For as long as you want."**

**"Well, we'll see if she calms down first." Clary punched the voice mail button on her phone. Her mother's ****voice sounded tense, but she was clearly trying for lightness: "Baby, I'm sorry if I sprang the vacation plan ****on you. Come on home and we'll talk." Clary hung the phone up before the message ended, feeling even ****guiltier and still angry at the same time. "She wants to talk about it." **

**"Do you want to talk to her?" **

**"I don't ****know." Clary rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. "Are you still going to the poetry ****reading?" **

**"I promised I would." Clary stood up, pushing her chair back. "Then I'll go with you. I'll call her ****when it's over."****The strap of ****her messenger bag slid down her arm. Simon pushed it back up absently, his fingers lingering at the bare ****skin of her shoulder. The air outside was spongy with moisture, the humidity frizzing Clary's hair and sticking ****Simon's blue T-shirt to his back. **

Jace shot daggers at Simon.

**"So, what's up with the band?" she asked. "Anything new? There was a lot of ****yelling in the background when I talked to you earlier."**

**Simon's face lit up. "Things are great," he said. "Matt says he knows someone who could get us a gig at ****the Scrap Bar. We're talking about names again too."**

** "Oh, yeah?" Clary hid a smile. Simon's band never ****actually produced any music. Mostly they sat around in Simon's living room, fighting about potential names ****and band logos. She sometimes wondered if any of them could actually play an instrument. "What's on the ****table?"**

**"We're choosing between Sea Vegetable Conspiracy and Rock Solid Panda."**

Magnus began to chuckle.

**Clary shook her head. "Those are both terrible."**

**"Eric suggested Lawn Chair Crisis."**

**"Maybe Eric should stick to gaming."**

**"But then we'd have to find a new drummer."**

**"Oh, is that what Eric does? I thought he just mooched money off you and went around telling girls at school ****that he was in a band in order to impress them."**

"That too."

**"Not at all," Simon said breezily. "Eric has turned over a new leaf. He has a girlfriend. They've been going ****out for three months."**

**"Practically married," Clary said, stepping around a couple pushing a toddler in a stroller: a little girl with ****yellow plastic clips in her hair who was clutching a pixie doll with gold-streaked sapphire wings. Out of the ****corner of her eye Clary thought she saw the wings flutter. She turned her head hastily.**

**"Which means," Simon continued, "that I am the last member of the bandnot to have a girlfriend. Which, you ****know, is the whole point of being in a band. To get girls."**

"Aren't bads for music?" Alec asked.

"Of course not." Isabelle declared. "Even i know that."

**"I thought it was all about the music." A man with a cane cut across her path, heading for Berkeley Street. She ****glanced away, afraid that if she looked at anyone for too long they would sprout wings, extra arms, or long ****forked tongues like snakes. "Who cares if you have a girlfriend, anyway?"**

**"I care," Simon said gloomily. "Pretty soon the only people left without a girlfriend will be me and Wendell ****the school janitor. And he smells like Windex."**

**"At least you know he's still available."**

**Simon glared. "Not funny, Fray."**

"It sorta is." Alrc paused. "Was."

**"There's always Sheila 'The Thong' Barbarino," Clary suggested. Clary had sat behind her in math class in ****ninth grade. Every time Sheila had dropped her pencil-which had been often-Clary had been treated to the ****sight of Sheila's underwear riding up above the waistband of her super-low-rise jeans.**

**"That is who Eric's been dating for the past three months," Simon said. "His advice, meanwhile, was that I ****ought to just decide which girl in school had the most rockin' bod and ask her out on the first day of classes."**

"I'd like to have a talk with him." Isabelle said cracking her knuckles.

**"Eric is a sexist pig," Clary said, suddenly not wanting to know which girl in school Simon thought had the****most rockin' bod. "Maybe you should call the band The Sexist Pigs."**

**"It has a ring to it." Simon seemed unfazed. Clary made a face at him, her messenger bag vibrating as her ****phone blared. She fished it out of the zip pocket. "Is it your mom again?" he asked.**

**Clary nodded. She could see her mother in her mind's eye, small and alone in the doorway of their apartment. **

**Guilt unfurled in her chest.**

**She glanced up at Simon, who was looking at her, his eyes dark with concern. His face was so familiar she ****could have traced its lines in her sleep. She thought of the lonely weeks that stretched ahead without him, and ****shoved the phone back into her bag. "Come on," she said. "We're going to be late for the show."**

"Cold." Magnus said blankly.

"Hey," Simon explained. "Why isn't that they don't tell you the truth st the beginging of the book it'd save so much more time."

"Is the next chapter called truths and whatever?" Isabelle asked. "Because this is getting boring."

"Glad to see that my day to day life holds no interest for you." Clary said sarcastically.

"Do I have to read _another_ chapter?" Alec asked holding the book out.

"Nope," Magnus said. "I've got it." He looked st the title of the next chapter.

"Shadowhunter." He read. "This should be fun."

* * *

**A/N**

**Sorry it's been a while since I updated. It just had to strike, ya know? Anyway I know I could've done better but I hope you all enoy this none the less i hope you enjoy. **


	3. Shadowhunter

"_Do I have to read another chapter?" Alec asked holding the book out._

_"Nope," Magnus said. "I've got it." He looked st the title of the next chapter._

_"Shadowhunter." He read. "This should be fun."_

Magnus paused. "So I take it things will be explained now?"

Clary shrugged. "Too be honest I don't remember."

Simon shook his head. "C'mon Magnus. Let's just get this over with."

Isabelle raised an eyebrow. "Any particular reason _why_ Simon?"

"_Ahem_." Magnus said clearing his throat. He gave a smirk before he began to read.

**By the time they got to Java Jones, Eric was already onstage, swaying back and forth in front of the microphone with his eyes squinched shut. He'd dyed the tips of his hair pink for the occasion. Behind him, Matt, looking stoned, was beating irregularly on a djembe.**

"Is being stoned a regular occurance for your 'friends'?" Jace asked.

"Of course not-"

"No way-"

Simon and Clary both paused staring at each other.

"Yeah..."

Isabelle threw her head back laughing.

**"This is going to suck so hard," Clary predicted. She grabbed Simon's sleeve and tugged him toward the doorway. "If we make a run for it, we can still get away."**

**He shook his head determinedly. "I'm nothing if not a man of my word."**

"Really?" Jace interjected. "I mean-"

"I am." Simon said straight faced.

"Well-"

"Jace." Alec interupted. "Simon just _doesn't_ lie. Deal with it."

Jace huffed.

**He squared his shoulders. "I'll get the coffee if you find us a seat. What do you want?"**

**"Just coffee. Black-like my soul."**

"Should I be worried?" Jace asked though his face showed more amusement then concern.

Clary laughed.

**Simon headed off toward the coffee bar, muttering under his breath something to the effect that it was a far, far better thing he did now than he had ever done before. Clary went to find them a seat. The coffee shop was crowded for a Monday; most of the threadbare-looking couches and armchairs were taken up with teenagers enjoying a free weeknight. The smell of coffee and clove cigarettes was overwhelming. Finally Clary found an unoccupied love seat in a darkened corner toward the back. The only other person nearby was a blond girl in an orange tank top, absorbed in playing with her iPod. Good, Clary thought, Eric won't be able to find us back here after the show to ask how his poetry was.**

"Ohhhhhh~~~" Magnus chuckled. "Evil Clary!"

"S-shut up!" Clary blushed. Jace wrapped his arm around her.

"Don't be embarrassed." He whispered. "I like it."

**The blond girl leaned over the side of her chair and tapped Clary on the shoulder. "Excuse me." Clary looked up in surprise. "Is that your boyfriend?" the girl asked.**

"Does she mean me?" Simon said confused.

Clary rolled her eyes. "You don't remember?"

**Clary followed the line of the girl's gaze, already prepared to say, 'No, I don't know him, when she realized the girl meant Simon.' He was headed toward them, face scrunched up in concentration as he tried not to drop either of his Styrofoam cups. "Uh, no," Clary said. "He's a friend of mine."**

"She really finds _him_ atteactive?" Alec asked scrunching up his face. "I mean before the vampire thing?"

Isabelle waved him off. "I think he's just adorable."

"Adorable?" Simon repeated somewhat effended.

**The girl beamed. "He's cute. Does he have a girlfriend?"**

**Clary hesitated a second too long before replying. "No."**

**The girl looked suspicious. "Is he gay?"**

"She thinks _you_ are gay?" Alec exclaimed.

"Not to hard to believe." Jace said.

"Oh, he is _not_ gay." Isabelle said in a way that implied something else. Simon meanwhile was giggling.

"She thinks because I don't have a girlfriend I'm gay. I'm _that_ good looking."

"Don't get a big head." Clary said shoving him slightly on the arm.

**Clary was spared responding to this by Simon's return. The blond girl sat back hastily as be set the cups on the table and threw himself down next to Clary. "I hate it when they run out of mugs. Those things are hot."**

**He blew on his fingers and scowled. Clary tried to hide a smile as she watched him. Normally she never ****thought about whether Simon was good-looking or not. He had pretty dark eyes, she supposed, and he'd filled ****out well over the past year or so. With the right haircut- "You're staring at me," Simon ****said. "Why are you staring at me? Have I got something on my face?"**

"I have pretty eyes?" Simon asked. Isabelle carressed his cheek.

"Beautiful eyes."

**I should tell him, she thought, though some part of her was strangely reluctant. I'd be a bad friend if I didn't. "Don't look now, but that blond girl over there thinks you're cute," she whispered. Simon's eyes flicked sideways to stare at the girl, who was industriously studying an issue of Shonen Jump. **

"What the hell is that?" Jace asked.

"It's a manga thing." Clary exclaimed.

"A whata?"

Simon shook his head. "Don't even try Clary."

**"The girl in the orange top?" Clary nodded. Simon looked dubious. "What makes you think so?"**

**Tell him. Go on, tell him.  
**

**Clary opened her mouth to reply, and was interrupted by a burst of feedback. She winced and covered her ears as Eric, onstage, wrestled with his microphone.**

**"Sorry about that, guys!" he yelled. "All right. I'm Eric, and this is my homeboy Matt on the drums. My first poem is called 'Untitled.'" He screwed up his face as if in pain, and wailed into the mike."Come, my faux juggernaut, my nefarious loins! Slatherevery protuberance with arid zeal!" **

Magnus couldn't breath. "Wh-wh-" He shook his head. "I'd like to meet this friend."

"No you don't." Simon and Clary spoke in unison.

**Simon slid down in his seat. "Please don't tell anyone I know him."**

**Clary giggled. "Who uses the word 'loins'?"**

**"Eric," Simon said grimly. "All his poems have loins in them."**

"You do know what a loin is right?" Alec asked.

"We know." Clary and Simon nodded.

"Are you sure about that?" Jace smirked. Clary layed her head on his shoulder.

"C'mon Jace."

**"Turgid is my torment!" ****Eric wailed."Agony swells within!" **

**"You bet it does," Clary said. She slid down in the seat next to Simon.**

**"Anyway, about that girl who thinks you're cute-"**

**"Never mind that for a second," Simon said. **

"You really didn't care?" Isabelle asked curiously.

Simon shrugged glancing towards Clary. "I guess not."

**Clary blinked at him in surprise.**

**"There's something I wanted to ****talk to you about."**

**"Furious Mole is not a good name for a band," Clary said immediately.**

"You know I was being like compleatly serious." Simon exclaimed.

Clary smiled innocently at him.

**"Not that," Simon said. "It's about what we were talking about before. About me not having a girlfriend."**

**"Oh." Clary lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Oh, I don't know. Ask Jaida Jones out," she suggested, naming one of the few girls at St. Xavier's she actually liked. "She's nice, and she likes you."**

"You really don't have a lot of friends do you guys?" Magnus asked.

"You're talking." Simon muttered well Clary crossed her arms and said.

"Shut up."

Jace laughed.

"Oh you don't get to laugh, your best friend is you brother!" Clary reminded.

Jace rolled his eyes.

**"I don't want to ask Jaida Jones out."**

**"Why not?" Clary found herself seized with a sudden, unspecific resentment.**

**"You don't like smart girls? Still ****seeking arockin' bod ?"**

"Hey!" Simon objected. "Not true!"

**"Neither," said Simon, who seemed agitated. "I don't want to ask her out because it wouldn't really be fair to her if I did..."**

**He trailed off. Clary leaned forward. From the corner of her eye she could see the blond girl leaning forward ****too, plainly eavesdropping. "Why not?"**

**"Because I like someone else," Simon said. ****"Okay." Simon looked faintly greenish, the way he had once when he'd broken his ankle playing soccer in the ****park and had had to limp home on it. **

"You play soccer?" Isabelle smiled happy at the new informarion.

Simon's smile broke. "I did..."

Clary gave him a sympethetic look. She was the only one who knew that Simon stopped playong after his dad died.

"But-"

As if sensing the tension Magnus said. "Let's move on!"

**She wondered what on earth about liking someone could possibly have ****him wound up to such a pitch of anxiety. "You're not gay, are you?"**

**Simon's greenish color deepened. "If I were, I would dress better."**

"Hey!" Alec objected offended by the statement.

"Alec," Magnus said. "His words are true."

**"So, who is it, then?" Clary asked. She was about to add that if he were in love with Sheila Barbarino, Eric would kick his ass, when she heard someone cough loudly behind her. It was a derisive sort of cough, the kind of noise someone might make who was trying not to laugh out loud. ****She turned around.**

Clary chuckled. "You are such an attention hog."

Jace smiled cheekily.

**Sitting on a faded green sofa a few feet away from her was Jace. He was wearing the same dark clothes he'd had on the night before in the club. His arms were bare and covered with faint white lines like old scars. His wrists bore wide metal cuffs; she could see the bone handle of a knife protruding from the left one. He was looking right at her, the side of his narrow mouth quirked in amusement. Worse than the feeling of being laughed at was Clary's absolute conviction that he hadn't been sitting there five minutes ago.**

**"What is it?" Simon had followed her gaze, but it was obvious from the blank expression on his face that he ****couldn't see Jace.**

"Obvious?" Jace repeated. "That's his normal look."

**But I see you.**

**She stared at Jace as she thought it, and he raised his left hand to wave at her. A ring glittered on a slim finger. He got to his feet and began walking, unhurriedly, toward the door. Clary's lips parted in surprise. He was leaving, just like that. She felt Simon's hand on her arm. He was saying her name, asking her if something was wrong. She barely heard him. "I'll be right back," she heard herself say, as she sprang off the couch, almost forgetting to set her coffee cup down. She raced toward the door, leaving Simon staring after her. Clary burst through the doors, terrified that Jace would have vanished into the alley shadows like a ghost. But he was there, slouched against the wall. He had just taken something out of his pocket and was punching buttons on it. He looked up in surprise as the door of the coffee shop fell shut behind her.**

"Wait," Magnus paused. "So you chase after the guy who you saw murder someone?"

"I _am_ irresistible." Jace gloated.

**In the rapidly falling twilight, his hair looked coppery gold. "Your friend's poetry is terrible," he said. ****Clary blinked, caught momentarily off guard. "What?"**

"And _that's_ the first thing you say?" Simon chuckled.

"It _was_ terrible." Jace defended.

**"I said his poetry was terrible. It sounds like he ate a dictionary and started vomiting up words at random."**

"Real literate Jace."

"Why thank you Isabelle."

**"I don't care about Eric's poetry." Clary was furious. "I want to know why you're following me."**

**"Who said I was following you?"**

**"Nice ****try. And you were eavesdropping, too. Do you want to tell me what this is about, or should I just call the ****police?"**

"Oh god." Magnus said. "Just imagine that. They'd think you're mental."

"I'd totally stick with you." Simon reasured.

"You you have believed me?"

"Never said that.'

"_Simon_!"

**"And tell them what?" Jace said witheringly. "That invisible people are bothering you? Trust me, little girl, ****the police aren't going to arrest someone they can't see."**

**"I told you before, my name is not little girl," she said through her teeth. "It's Clary."**

Alec shook his head. "Things have really changed, haven't they?"

**"I know," he said. "Pretty name. Like the herb, clary sage. In the old days people thought eating the seeds would let you see the Fair Folk. Did you know that?"**

**"I have no idea what you're talking about."**

"Are you aware of how insane you sounded to me?" Clary asked.

"Well you do make me crazy." Jace flirted.

**"You don't know much, do you?" he said. There was a lazy contempt in his gold eyes. "You seem to be a mundane like any other mundane, yet you can see me. It's a conundrum."**

"Conundrum." Magnus giggled.

**"What's a mundane?" **

**"Someone of the human world. Someone like you." **

**"But you're human," Clary said. **

**"I am," he said. "But I'm not like you."**

**There was no defensiveness in his tone. He sounded like he didn't care if she believed him or not. "You think you're better. That's why you were laughing at us." **

"We are better."

"_Jace_!"

**"I was laughing at you because declarations of love amuse me, especially when unrequited," he said. **

At those words Jace gave Alec a guilty look and his step brother in turn looked away.

**"And because your Simon is one of the most mundane mundanes I've ever encountered. And because Hodge ****thought you might be dangerous, but if you are, you certainly don't know it."**

"Which was strange enough on its own." Isabelle added.

**"I'm dangerous?" Clary echoed in astonishment. "I saw you kill someone last night. I saw you drive a knife up under his ribs, and-And I saw him slash at you with fingers like razor blades. I saw you cut and bleeding, and now you look as if nothing ever touched you."**

"Wow." Magnus said. "That was precise."

**"I may be a killer," Jace said, "but I know what I am. Can you say the same?" **

"I really hated you." Clary reminded. Jace laughed.

**"I'm an ordinary human being, just like you said. Who's Hodge?"**

"A _traitor_." Jace spoke somewhat viciously**. **

**"My tutor. And I wouldn't be so quick to brand myself as ordinary, if I were  
you." He leaned forward. "Let me see your right hand." **

**"My right hand?" Clary echoed. He nodded. "If I show you my hand, will you  
leave me alone?" **

**"Certainly." His voice was edged with amusement. She held out her right hand grudgingly. It looked pale in the half-light spilling from the windows, the  
knuckles dotted with a light dusting of freckles. Somehow she felt as exposed as if she were pulling up her shirt and showing him her naked chest. **

Just at that image in his head Jace giggled. Clary slapped his arm.

**He took her hand in his and turned it over. "Nothing." He sounded almost disappointed. "You're not left-handed, are you?"**

**"No. Why?"**

**He released her hand with a shrug. "Most Shadowhunter children get Marked on their right hands-or left, if they're left-handed like I am-when they're still young. It's a permanent rune that lends an extra skill with weapons." He showed her the back of his left hand; it looked perfectly normal to her.**

**"I don't see anything," she said.**

**"Let your mind relax," he suggested. "Wait for it to come to you. Like waiting for something to rise to the surface of water."**

**"You're crazy." But she relaxed, gazing at his hand, seeing the tiny lines across the knuckles, the long joints of the fingers ÂIt jumped out at her suddenly, flashing like a don't walk sign. A black design like an eye across the back of his  
hand. She blinked, and it vanished. "A tattoo?"**

"A rune." Clary corrected herself.

**He smiled smugly and lowered his hand. "I thought you could do it. And it's not a tattoo-it's a Mark. They're runes, burned into our skin."**

**"They make you handle weapons better?" Clary found this hard to believe, though perhaps no more hard to believe than the existence of zombies.**

**"Different Marks do different things. Some are permanent but the majority vanish when they've been used."**

**"That's why your arms aren't all inked up today?" she asked. "Even when I concentrate?"**

**"That's exactly why." He sounded pleased with himself. "I knew you had the Sight, at least." He glanced ****up at the sky. "It's nearly full dark. We should go."**

"Oh god Jace," Magnus exclaimed. "You sound like such a stalker."

Jace waved him off.

**"We? I thought you were going to leave me alone."**

**"I lied," Jace said without a shred of embarrassment. "Hodge said I have to bring you to the Institute with ****me. He wants to talk to you."**

"You know I hate it when you lie."

Jace shrugged. "I can't help that I'm so good at it."

"Yes," Alec intejected. "You can."

**"Why would he want to talk to me?"**

**"Because you know the truth now," Jace said. "There hasn't been a mundane who knew about us for at least a hundred years."**

"Not a mundane." Muttered Clary.

"So," Simon smiled. "I'm technically the first mundane to learn about you guys in a hundread years?"

"Stop looking so smug Lewis." Jace snarled.

**"Aboutus?" she echoed. "You mean people like you. People who believe in demons."**

**"People who kill them," said Jace. "We're called Shadow-hunters. At least, that's what we call ourselves. ****The Downworlders have less complimentary names for us."**

**"Downworlders?"**

**"The Night Children. Warlocks. The fey. The magical folk of this dimension."**

**Clary shook her head. "Don't stop there. I suppose there are also, what, vampires and werewolves and zombies?" **

**"Of course there are," Jace informed her. "Although you mostly find zombies farther south, where the voudun priests are."**

Simon jumped up. "I knew there were zombies!"

**"What about mummies? Do they only hang around Egypt?"**

**"Don't be ridiculous. No one believes in mummies."**

"That's what you find ridicules?" Alec shook his head.

**"They don't?"**

**"Of course not," Jace said. "Look, Hodge will explain all this to you when you see him."**

**Clary crossed her arms over her chest. "What if I don't want to see him?"**

**"That's your problem. You can come either willingly or unwillingly."**

"Jace!" Isabelle sighed. "I knew I should have gone instead of you. You are so terrible with people."

"People love me." Jace replied.

"And then you open you mouth." Simon snarked.

Jace gave him a glare.

**Clary couldn't believe her ears. "Are you threatening to kidnap me?"**

**"If you want to look at it that way," Jace said, "Yes."**

**Clary opened her mouth to protest angrily, but was interrupted by a strident buzzing noise. Her phone was ringing again.**

**"Go ahead and answer that if you like," Jace said generously.**

Clary gave a guilty look. "I should have answered the first ring."

**The phone stopped ringing, then started up again, loud and insistent. Clary frowned-her mom must really be freaking out. She half-turned away from Jace and began digging in her bag. By the time she unearthed the phone, it was on its third set of rings. **

**She raised it to her ear. "Mom?" **

**"Oh, Clary. Oh, thank God." A sharp prickle of alarm ran up Clary's spine. Her mother sounded panicked. "Listen to me-"**

**"It's all right, Mom. I'm fine. I'm on my way home-"**

**"No!"**

**Terror scraped Jocelyn's voice raw. "Don't come home! Do you understand me, Clary? Don't you dare come home. Go to Simon's. Go straight to Simon's house and stay there until I can-" A noise in the background interrupted her: the sound of something falling, shattering, something heavy striking the floor.**

**"Mom!" Clary shouted into the phone. "Mom, are you all right?"**

**A loud buzzing noise came from the phone. Clary's mother's voice cut through the static: "Just promise me you won't come home. Go to Simon's and call Luke-tell him that he's found me-" Her words were drowned out by a heavy crash like splintering wood.**

**"Who's found you? Mom, did you call the police? Did you-"**

**Her frantic question was cut off by a noise Clary would never forget-a harsh, slithering noise, followed by ****a thump. Clary heard her mother draw in a sharp breath before speaking, her voice eerily calm: "I love you, ****Clary."**

**The phone went dead.**

"Clary." Jace said softly intertwining his hand with hers. Clary tugged onto it.

**"Mom!"**

**Clary shrieked into the phone. "Mom, are you there?" **

**Call ended, the screen said. But why would her mother have hung up like that?**

**"Clary," Jace said. It was the first time she'd ever heard him say her name.**

**"What's going on?" ****Clary ignored him. Feverishly she hit the button that dialed her home number. There was no answer except a ****double-tone busy signal.**

**Clary's hands had begun to shake uncontrollably. When she tried to redial, the phone slipped out of her shaking grasp and hit the pavement hard. She dropped to her knees to retrieve it, but it was dead, a long crack visible across the front.**

**"Dammit!" Almost in tears, she threw the phone down.**

**"Stop that." Jace hauled her to her feet, his hand gripping her wrist. "Has something happened?"**

**"Give me your phone," Clary said, grabbing the black metal oblong out of his shirt pocket. "I have to-"**

**"It's not a phone," Jace said, making no move to get it back. "It's a Sensor. You won't be able to use it."**

**"But I need to call the police!"**

**"Tell me what happened first." She tried to yank her wrist back, but his grip was incredibly strong. "I can help you."**

"I should have trusted you." Clary spoke.

"I don't blame you for not." Jace replied.

**Rage flooded through Clary, a hot tide through her veins. Without even thinking about it, she struck out at his ****face, her nails raking his cheek. He jerked back in surprise. Tearing herself free, Clary ran toward the lights of ****Seventh Avenue.**

**When she reached the street, she spun around, half-expecting to see Jace at her heels. But the alley was ****empty. For a moment she stared uncertainly into the shadows. Nothing moved inside them. She spun on her ****heel and ran for home.**

"Clary..." Simon said. "I'll um...I'll read. Okay." He took the book from Magnus' eyes amd read the title for the next chapter. "Ravener."

* * *

**A/N**

**I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! I don't know if it was good or not but I hope you liked it. If you guys have any ideas dont be afraid to share them! Please review!**


	4. Ravener

_"Clary..." Simon said. "I'll um...I'll read. Okay." He took the book from Magnus' eyes amd read the title for the next chapter. "Ravener."_

**The night had gotten even hotter, and running home felt like swimming as fast as she could through boiling soup. At the corner of her block Clary got trapped at a don't walk sign. She jittered up and down impatiently on the balls of her feet while traffic whizzed by in a blur of headlights. She tried to call home again, but Jace hadn't been lying; his phone wasn't a phone. At least, it didn't look like any phone Clary had ever seen before. The Sensor's buttons didn't have numbers on them, just more of those bizarre symbols, and there was no screen.**

"You really thought it was a phone?" Magnus murmured.

Alec put a finger to his lips signaling for quiet.

**Jogging up the street toward her house, she saw that the second-floor windows were lit, the usual sign that her mother was fine. But her stomach tightened the moment she steppedinto the entryway. The overhead light had burned out, and the foyer was in darkness. The shadows seemed full of secret movement. Shivering, she started upstairs.**

**"And just where do you think you're going ?" said a voice.**

**Clary whirled. "What-"**

**She broke off. Her eyes were adjusting to the dimness, and she could see the shape of a large armchair, drawn up in front of Madame Dorothea's closed door. The old woman was wedged into it like an overstuffed cushion.**

"So she actually fit in the doorframe?" Magnus asked.

"More or less." Clary responded.

**In the dimness Clary could see only the round shape of her powdered face, the white lace fan in her hand, the dark, yawning gap of her mouth when she spoke. "Your mother," Dorothea said, "has been making a godawful racket up there. What's she doing? Moving furniture?"**

**"I don't think-"**

**"And the stairwell light's burned out, did you notice?" Dorothea rapped her fan against the arm of the chair.**

Isabelle arched an eyebrow. "Is she stalling you?"

Clary shrugged her shoulders. "She could of been."

**"Can't your mother get her boyfriend in to change it?"**

**"Luke isn't-"**

**"The skylight needs washing too. It's filthy. No wonder it's nearly pitch-black in here."**

**_Luke is NOT the landlord_, Clary wanted to say, but didn't. **

"You should've." Isabelle Said. "She'll never stop if you don't."

**This was typical of her elderly neighbor. Once she got Luke to come around and change the lightbulb, she'd ask him to do a hundred other things-pick up her groceries, grout her shower.**

**Once she'd made him chop up an old sofa with an axe so she could get it out of the apartment without taking the door off the hinges.**

"What a-"

"Jace!"

**Clary sighed. "I'll ask."**

**"You'd better." Dorothea snapped her fan shut with a flick of her wrist.**

**Clary's sense that something was wrong only increased when she reached the apartment door. It was unlocked, hanging slightly open, spilling a wedge-shaped shaft of light onto the landing. With a feeling of increasing panic she pushed the door open.**

**Inside the apartment the lights were on, all the lamps, everything turned up to full brightness. The glow stabbed into her eyes.**

**Her mother's keys and pink handbag were on the small wrought iron shelf by the door, where she always left them. **

**"Mom?" Clary called out. "Mom, I'm home."**

Clary took a shaky breath as Simon coutinued.

**There was no reply. She went into the living room. Both windows were open, yards of gauzy white curtains blowing in the breeze like restless ghosts. Only when the wind dropped and the curtains settled did Clary see that the cushions had been ripped from the sofa and scattered around the room. Some were torn lengthwise, cotton innards spilling onto the floor. The bookshelves had been tipped over, their contents scattered. The piano bench lay on its side, gaping open like a wound, Jocelyn's beloved music books spewing out.**

**Most terrifying were the paintings. Every single one had been cut from its frame and ripped into strips, which were scattered across the floor. It must have been done with a knife-canvas was almost impossible to tear with your bare hands. The empty frames looked like bones picked clean. Clary felt a scream rising up in her chest.**

**"Mom!" she shrieked."Where are you? Mommy!"**

**She hadn't called Jocelyn "Mommy" since she was eight.**

Jace squeezed Clary's hand and kissed her forhead softly. "It's alright." he whispered in her ear.

**Heart pumping, she raced into the kitchen. It was empty, the cabinet doors open, a smashed bottle of Tabasco sauce spilling peppery red liquid onto the linoleum. Her knees felt like bags of water. She knew she should race out of the apartment, get to a phone, call the police. But all those things seemed distant-she needed to find her mother first, needed to see that she was all right. What if robbers had come, what if her mother had put up a fight-?**

**What kind of robbers didn't take a wallet with them, or the TV, the DVD player, or the expensive laptops?**

"Robbers who aren't robbers." Simon said.

"Clearly." Magnus agreed.

**She was at the door to her mother's bedroom now. For a moment it looked as if this room, at least, had been left untouched. Jocelyn's handmade flowered quilt was folded carefully on the duvet. Clary's own face smiled back at her from the top of the bedside table, five years old, gap-toothed smile framed by strawberry hair. A sob rose in Clary's chest, she cried inside, _what happened to you?_**

**Silence answered her. No, not silence-a noise sounded through the apartment, raising the short hairs along the nape of her neck. Like something being knocked over-a heavy object striking the floor with a dull thud. The thud was followed by a dragging, slithering noise-and it was coming toward the bedroom. Stomach contracting in terror, Clary scrambled to her feet and turned around slowly.**

"Slowly?" Magnus asked. "Why would you turn around slowely?"

"It just happened alright?" Clary responded.

**For a moment she thought the doorway was empty, and she felt a wave of relief. Then she looked down.**

**It was crouched against the floor, a long, scaled creature with a cluster of flat black eyes set dead center in the front of its domed skull. Something like a cross between an alligator and a centipede, it had a thick, flat snout and a barbed tail that whipped menacingly from side to side. Multiple legs bunched underneath it as it readied itself to spring.**

"A ravener." Alec realized.

**A shriek tore itself out of Clary's throat. She staggered backward, tripped, and fell, just as the creature lunged at her. She rolled to the side and it missed her by inches, sliding along the wood floor, its claws gouging deep grooves. A low growl bubbled from its throat.**

**She scrambled to her feet and ran toward the hallway, but the thing was too fast for her. It sprang again, landing just above the door, where it hung like a gigantic malignant spider, staring down at her with its cluster of eyes. Its jaws opened slowly, showing a row of fanged teeth spilling greenish drool. A long black tongue flickered out between its jaws as it gurgled and hissed. To her horror Clary realized that the noises it was making were words.**

**"Girl," it hissed."Flesh. Blood. To eat, oh, to eat."**

"Freaky." Simon muttered under his breath as he continued reading.

**It began to slither slowly down the wall. Some part of Clary had passed beyond terror into a sort of icy stillness. The thing was on its feet now, crawling toward her. Backing away, she seized a heavy framed photo off the bureau beside her-herself and her mother and Luke at Coney Island, about to go on the bumper cars-and flung it at the monster.**

"You threw a picture frame at the Ravener?" Isabelle said with a chuckle.

Clary shrugged sheepishly. "I just wanted to throw _something_."

**The photograph hit its midsection and bounced off, striking the floor with the sound of shattering glass. The creature didn't seem to notice. It came on toward her, broken glass splintering under its feet. "Bones, to crunch, to suck out the marrow, to drink the veins..."**

**Clary's back hit the wall. She could back up no farther. She felt a movement against her hip and nearly jumped out of her skin. Her pocket. Plunging her hand inside, she drew out the plastic thing she'd taken from Jace. The Sensor was shuddering, like a cell phone set to vibrate. The hard material was almost painfully hot against her palm. She closed her hand around the Sensor just as the creature sprang.**

**The creature hurtled into her, knocking her to the ground, and her head and shoulders slammed against the floor. She twisted to the side, but it was too heavy. It was on top of her, an oppressive, slimy weight that made her want to gag."To eat, to eat," it moaned."But it is not allowed, to swallow, to savor."**

"I still don't get it." Clary admitted.

"It means it has to eat you fast." Isabelle said jokingly. Clary rolled her eyes.

**The hot breath in her face stank of blood. She couldn't breathe. Her ribs felt like they might shatter. Her arm was pinned between her body and the monster's, the Sensor digging into her palm. She twisted, trying to work her hand free."Valentine will never know. He said nothing about a girl. Valentine will not be angry." Its lipless mouth twitched as its jaws opened, slowly, a wave of stinking breath hot in her face.**

**Clary's hand came free. With a scream she hit out at the thing, wanting to smash it, to blind it. She had almost forgotten the Sensor. As the creature lunged for her face, jaws wide, she jammed the Sensor between its teeth and felt hot, acidic drool coat her wrist and spill in burning drops onto the bare skin of her face and throat. As if from a distance, she could hear herself screaming. **

**Looking almost surprised, the creature jerked back, the Sensor lodged between two teeth. It growled, a thick angry buzz, and threw its head back. Clary saw it swallow, saw the movement of its throat.**

"Nicely done Clary." Magnus congratulated.

**_I'm next_, she thought, panicked. Suddenly the thing began to twitch. Spasming uncontrollably, it rolled off Clary and onto its back, multiple legs churning the air. Black fluid poured from its mouth.**

**Gasping for air, Clary rolled over and started to scramble away from the thing. She'd nearly reached the door when she heard something whistle through the air next to her head. She tried to duck, but it was too late. An object slammed heavily into the back of her skull, and she collapsed forward into blackness.**

"Wow." Alec said staring wide eyed at Clary.

**Light stabbed through her eyelids, blue, white, and red. There was a high wailing noise, rising in pitch like the scream of a terrified child. Clary gagged and opened her eyes.**

**She was lying on cold damp grass. The night sky rippled overhead, the pewter gleam of stars washed out by city lights. Jace knelt beside her, the silver cuffs on his wrists throwing off sparks of light as he tore the piece of cloth he was holding into strips. "Don't move."**

"Real reassuring Jace." Simon said. "Great first impressions."

"I was saving her life." Jace defended.

"You could've done it kindly."

"Shut up."

**The wailing threatened to split her ears in half. Clary turned her head to the side, disobediently, and was rewarded with a razoring stab of pain that shot down her back. She was lying on a patch of grass behind Jocelyn's carefully tended rosebushes. The foliage partially hid her view of the street, where a police car, its blue-and-white light bar flashing, was pulled up to the curb, siren wailing. Already a small knot of neighbors had gathered, staring as the car door opened and two blue-uniformed officers emerged. The police. She tried to sit up, and gagged again, fingers spasming into the damp earth.**

**"I told you not to move," Jace hissed. "That Ravener demon got you in the back of the neck. It was half-dead so it wasn't much of a sting, but we have to get you to the Institute. Hold still."**

**"That thing-the monster-it talked." Clary was shuddering uncontrollably.**

**"You've heard a demon talk before." Jace's hands were gentle as he slipped the strip of knotted cloth under her neck, and tied it. It was smeared with something waxy, like the gardener's salve her mother used to keep her paint- and turpentine-abused hands soft.**

"Jace? Gentle?" Simon said flasbbergasted.

"Hard to believe right?" Alec nodded.

Jace face palmed.

**"The demon in Pandemonium-it looked like a person."**

**"It was an Eidolon demon. A shape-changer. Raveners look like they look. Not very attractive, but they're too stupid to care."**

**"It said it was going to eat me."**

**"But it didn't. You killed it." Jace finished the knot and sat back.**

"Nice subtly Jace." Isabelle exclaimed.

Jace shrugged his shoulders with a chuckle.

**To Clary's relief the pain in the back of her neck had faded. She hauled herself into a sitting position. "The police are here." Her voice came out like a frog's croak. "We should-"**

**"There's nothing they can do. Somebody probably heard you screaming and reported it. Ten to one those aren't real police officers. Demons have a way of hiding their tracks."**

"Then how do they have the cars?" Simon asked. "Not that I don't believe you but-"

"Leave it Simon." Isabelle warned.

**"My mom," Clary said, forcing the words through her swollen throat.  
**

**"There's Ravener poison coursing through your veins right now. You'll be dead in an hour if you don't come with me." He got to his feet and held out a hand to her. She took it and he pulled her upright. "Come on."**

**The world tilted. Jace slid a hand across her back, holding her steady. He smelled of dirt, blood, and metal.**

**"Can you walk?"**

**"I think so." She glanced through the densely blooming bushes. She could see the police coming up the path.**

**One of them, a slim blond woman, held a flashlight in one hand. As she raised it, Clary saw the hand was fleshless, a skeleton hand sharpened to bone points at the fingertips. "Her hand-"**

**"I told you they might be demons." Jace glanced at the back of the house. "We have to get out of here. Can we go through the alley?"**

"Luring a girl into an alley way?" Magnus said. "Real suspicous Jace."

"Luring?" Jace repeated. "She _wanted_ to come with me."

"Actually-"

"Clary-hunny-shush."

**Clary shook her head. "It's bricked up. There's no way-" Her words dissolved into a fit of coughing. She raised her hand to cover her mouth. It came away red. She whimpered.**

**He grabbed her wrist, turned it over so the white, vulnerable flesh of her inner arm lay bare under the moonlight. Traceries of blue vein mapped the inside of her skin, carrying poisoned blood to her heart, her brain. Clary felt her knees buckle. There was something in Jace's hand, something sharp and silver. She tried to pull her hand back, but his grip was too hard: She felt a stinging kiss against her skin. When he let go, she saw an inked black symbol like the ones that covered his skin, just below the fold of her wrist. This one looked like a set of overlapping circles.**

**"What's that supposed to do?"**

**"It'll hide you," he said. "Temporarily." **

"You know you should've told her what it would do before you did it." Simon commented.

"It worked out, didn't it?"

"Yeah but..."

**He slid the thing Clary had thought was a knife back into his belt. It was a long, luminous cylinder, as thick around as an index finger and tapering to a point. "My stele," he said.**

**Clary didn't ask what that was. She was busy trying not to fall over. The ground was heaving up and down under her feet. "Jace," she said, and she crumpled into him. He caught her as if he were used to catching fainting girls, as if he did it every day. Maybe he did. He swung her up into his arms, saying something in her ear that sounded like Covenant. Clary tipped her head back to look at him but saw only the stars cartwheeling across the dark sky overhead. Then the bottom dropped out of everything, and even Jace's arms around her were not enough to keep her from falling.**

"Oh wait!" Isabelle said brightening up. "Shouldn't we be coming in soon?" She asked Alec.

He frowned.

"We were in already Izzy."

"But for real!"

Simon rolled hos eyes and tossed Isabelle the book.

She opened the page for the next chapter and read out.

"Chapter 5, Clave and Covenant."

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**A/N**

**Sorry it took such a whole to update. The reason why is cause I planned to do it after I got 30 reviews but that didn't happen so I figured I should just update as it is. I hope you enjoyed it and please review!**


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